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Hantavirus: Let’s Demand Data Not Drama
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Hantavirus: Let’s Demand Data Not Drama
Dr. Joseph Varon has a brilliant new piece out in Brownstone, and the title says it all: The Hantavirus Panic Machine.
His point is simple: a disease can be dangerous and still be extremely rare.
That is what the media keeps blurring.
Hantavirus is serious. Nobody is pretending otherwise. But according to Dr. Varon, confirmed U.S. cases over more than three decades barely exceed 1,000. That is context people need before the “deadly virus” headlines start doing what they always do.
The real prevention advice is not glamorous. It is not breaking-news material. It is rodent control, ventilation, gloves, masks when cleaning contaminated spaces, sealed food, and basic sanitation. Boring? Yes. Useful? Also yes. ([Brownstone Institute][1])
But boring does not drive clicks.
There’s a deeper issue here too. After COVID, many people never really left that fear framework. Every new pathogen now gets filtered through unresolved pandemic trauma. And when a society is governed by fear, it stops thinking clearly. It demands constant reassurance, surveillance, and overreaction — instead of context, proportion, and calm judgment. Medicine should be pushing back against that, not feeding it.
So here we are again: rare disease becomes media theater, fear gets recycled, and the public is pushed into anxiety instead of given proportionate information.
Dr. Varon says it plainly: severity is not the same as prevalence. We should demand data and
We’ll drop the full article in the comments.
Do you think the media can still report health risks without turning them into panic?
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3 Replies
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Mit teuren antiviralen Medikamenten (und Angstmache) ist eine Menge Geld zu verdienen. Ich erinnere an Molnupiravir, Netratelvir und Ritonavir, die bei Sars-CoV-2 eingesetzt wurden.
Und es gibt weitere Kandidaten für Infektionen, die für Angstmacherei in Frage kommen: Lassa, RSV, HCV Herpes Influenza, Picorna, HIV um nur einige zu nennen.
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Thanks @hum07 – “Expensive antiviral medications (and fearmongering) can generate a lot of money. I recall Molnupiravir, Nirmatrelvir, and Ritonavir, which were used for SARS-CoV-2.-
And there are other candidates for infections that could be used for fearmongering: Lassa, RSV, HCV, herpes, influenza, picornaviruses, HIV—just to name a few.”
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